Everything Newark

Newark Star Ledger: Booker unveils his tough-love plan for Newark. Booker rolls out a plan to prevent crime in the city, enroll the community to help, and asks for accountability. This is really encouraging for citizens who, for a long time, have felt captive in their own neighborhoods by violent crime.

Booker unveiled his new program at a news conference at West Side Park that included law enforcement officials, politicians and a display of expensive new police equipment.

He called the two prongs of his plan “discipline” and “love,” in which criminals will be punished and struggling people—drug ad dicts, jobless youth, poor families and ex-cons looking to turn around their lives—will get the help they need to stay out of trouble.

The program starts this weekend and will end Sept. 7, when the new school year begins. At that point, Booker said he will start another initiative aimed at school safety.

7Online: Anti-Violence Task Force To Target Newark Killings. Newark and U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie announce a joint effort to quell violent crime in the city of Newark. The task force, which includes the DEA, FBI, and U.S. Marshals office adds dozens of officers on the ground in Newark’s neighborhoods and, presumably, costs the city little in terms of municpal dollars—very shrewd move on the part of Mayor Booker. Here’s hoping that this new task force puts down the trend of violent crime we’ve seen in recent weeks, including a string of five shootings in Newark and Orange just Monday night.

With scores of killings already committed this year in the state’s largest city, an anti-violence task force led by federal law enforcement agents said Monday it will focus solely on Newark to try to end the carnage.

New York Times: Booker Names 6 to Top Jobs in Newark. Two days before his inauguration, Cory Booker named officials to the top jobs in his administration. Booker’s appointments will be scrutinized relative to how they are able to deal with the growing crime problem as citizens fear an increase in the homicide rate.

Anthony Campos, a 20-year veteran of the Newark Police Department, was named acting police chief. Mr. Campos, 39, is currently the deputy chief of police and will succeed Chief Irving F. Bradley Jr. Mr. Booker said he was conducting a nationwide search for a permanent police director and chief but that he had authorized Mr. Campos to increase police presence on the street within hours of the swearing-in at noon on Saturday.

Newark has seen a rise in violent crime in the last year, and both Mr. Booker and Chief Campos cited last weekend’s violence in the city, in which eight people were shot and two of them died.

Bill Cosby came back to Newark to discuss stemming the violence the city has experienced in the past six months. He essentially stuck to his script of criticizing disengaged parents and political leaders that have failed to attach the city’s problems effectively. 7Online and the Ledger have the story:

7Online: Bill Cosby discusses violence in Newark

Comedian Bill Cosby appearing in Newark on Tuesday night, but he was not there as entertainment.

Instead, he is speaking out about the alarming rate of violence in that community, especially among young people.

So far, 50 people have been murdered in Newark this year.

Live from the Ledger: Comedian Bill Cosby urges Newark to get serious

Several shootings in the south and central wards of the city—one of them fatal—have been hitting the news outlets.

7Online: Can Newark’s streets be taken back?. Also with a 2-minute video of the report.

A violent night has become a busy day for police detectives in Newark. Authorities are investigating several shooting incidents that erupted last night only a few hours apart.
One of the victims was killed and eight others ended up in hospital emergency rooms.

It was a wild night on Newark’s south side. Police are still trying to figure out exactly what happened and why all these occurred a matter of blocks from one another in a matter of hours.

Live from the Ledger: Off-duty female officer robbed at gunpoint in Newark

An off-duty female officer was robbed in the driveway of her home in the South Ward, but was not harmed. From the Star Ledger:

Detectives from the Newark Police Department are searching for a bandit who robbed an off-duty female city police officer at gunpoint around 2:45 p.m. today.

During the robbery, the suspect took the officer’s purse which contained her service weapon, her police identification card and other personal items. Authorities did not identify the officer, but she was not injured.

The incident started after the 44-year-old officer parked her car in the driveway of her Newark home.

Live from the Ledger: Two teens killed in Essex County. Two more teenage boys are killed this weekend due to gunfire: one in Irvington, and another on Sunset Avenue in Newark.

A 15-year-old died and two oth­ers were injured in a drive-by shooting outside a party in Ir­vington, while in Newark a 19-year-old was shot several times after an argument, police said today.

The 15-year-old, identified by his mother as Shafe Boyd Cruz of Irvington, was pronounced dead at the scene, Irvington Police Chief Michael Chase said.

…

In Newark, Kevin Hennix, a city resident, was shot several times in the upper torso about 2:45 p.m. Saturday on Sunset Street in the aftermath of an argument, said Newark Police Detective Herbert Henderson, a police spokesman.

He was pronounced dead at the scene.

An Associated Press story is making the rounds in the wake of the shooting of several teenagers over the past couple of weeks. Home News Tribune Online: Crime likely to be top issue for incoming Newark mayor.

As Cory Booker prepares to become mayor of New Jersey’s largest city in July, many say the top priority for his incoming administration is obvious: fighting crime.

Polls that Booker’s own campaign took during his campaign showed more than 80 percent of Newark residents said crime was the top issue in a city that by last week already had 40 murders this year, 11 more than the same period in 2005.

The New York Times covers the need for greater safety and crime prevention in their piece, A Bleeding City, Seeking More Than a Band-Aid.

Newsday: State assemblywoman steps down amid accusations. Wow. As if double-dipping on the taxpayer’s dollar isn’t going to bring in enough income, one of our state assembly representing Newark is caught swapping pricetags in a housewares store to save a quick $80. Real classy.